Johnston] NAVAHO POPULATION 23 



at Fort Defiance in large numbers, preferring captivity to the certain 

 death that faced them on their homeland.^^ 



In the year preceding, the Americans had established an area along 

 the banks of the Little Pecos River in southeastern New Mexico as a 

 site for the concentration and maintenance of all captive Indians from 

 the New Mexico territory. The locale was known to the Spaniards as 

 Bosque Redondo (Round Grove). After renovating the small fort 

 located there, the Americans renamed the place Fort Sumner. In 

 1863, some 400 Apaches were brought to this place in captivity. Dur- 

 ing the following 2 years, over 8,000 Navahos were to embark on the 

 "long walk" to this fort.^^ The ensuing 4-year interval might be 

 designated the "failure of a dream." General Carleton, in charge of all 

 Indians in captivity at Fort Sumner, retained the notions of his 

 Spanish predecessors that the Navaho and Apache might be trans- 

 formed into peaceful agrarians. He instituted an ambitious program 

 of agricultural development, hoping to establish at Fort Sumner a 

 sort of Utopian, self-sufficient Indian community which would serve 

 as a model for the eventual solution of the "Indian problem" through- 

 out the frontier. In this community, the Indians were to be instructed 

 in domestic and agricultural arts and crafts, following the pattern of 

 life established among the Pueblo. 



Initially, the Navaho appear to have reacted to the profound shock 

 of their defeat and captivity with great resourcefulness and flexi- 

 bility.*" However, the entire program envisioned by Carleton was 

 beset by failure on all sides. An invasion of caterpillars (known, ap- 

 propriately enough, as "army worms") destroyed the first crop planted 

 at the fort. Supplies of fuel were soon exhausted. Emergency ap- 

 propriations for relief were largely dissipated through various forms 

 of mismanagement and graft. Ultimately, the futility of the program 



^ The extreme vulnerability of the Navaho to a campaign directed against their agri- 

 culture is indicated by the fact that they, numbering at least 10,000 at this time, could in 

 theory have brought close to 3,000 warriors against Colonel Carson. Carson's forces, on 

 the other hand, numbered 736 officers and men, of whom only about two-thirds were 

 mounted and armed. Nevertheless, this campaign forced the surrender of the bulk of 

 the Navaho tribe after a small loss of life on each side. Underbill, 1956, ch. 10, pp. 

 112-126 ; cf. Carleton, 1867, pp. 247-257, wherein is given General Carleton's report to 

 the effect that 301 Indians were killed In the hostilities preceding the surrender of the 

 Navaho and Apache tribes. 



2' The Navaho captives were brought to Fort Sumner by several routes. The distance 

 from Fort Defiance, where most of the Navahos surrendered themselves, to Fort Sumner 

 was over 300 miles. This journey took several weeks, through lands unknown to the 

 Navaho, and Is still referred to by older Navahos as the "long walk." The plan of the 

 fort and several photographs taken there during the period of Navaho exile are included 

 in Underbill, 1953, pp. 166-175. 



*" Not the least of their problems was that of adjusting to the strange diet provided 

 them by the Army commissary, which dumped sacks of flour and coffee beans among the 

 Navaho with no Instructions as to their preparation. The Navaho spent the better part 

 of the first hard winter at Fort Sumner attempting various mixtures of flour and coffee 

 beans, without making them in the least bit palatable. However, In their efforts to con- 

 struct irrigation ditches and housing and to plant fields under Army direction, the Navaho 

 bring to mind the response of the Manus to the equally profound changes affecting their 

 culture two generations later. 



